Ambition
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NLESS it was that day I never knewAmbition. After a night of frost, beforeThe March sun brightened and the South-west blew,Jackdaws began to shout and float and soarAlready, and one was racing straight and highAlone, shouting like a black warriorChallenges and menaces to the wide sky.With loud long laughter then a woodpeckerRidiculed the sadness of the owl's last cry.And through the valley where all the folk astirMade only plumes of pearly smoke to towerOver dark trees and white meadows happierThan was Elysium in that happy hour,A train that roared along raised after itAnd carried with it a motionless white bowerOf purest cloud, from end to end close-knit,So fair it touched the roar with silence. TimeWas powerless while that lasted. I could sitAnd think I had made the loveliness of prime,Breathed its life into it and were its lord,And no mind lived save this 'twixt clouds and rime.Omnipotent I was, nor even deploredThat I did nothing. But the end fell like a bell:The bower was scattered; far off the train roared.But if this was ambition I cannot tell.What 'twas ambition for I know not well.
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